As the team prepares for its final game of the season — an appearance in the NIT final — a portion of this is because of the man who herded the program through the transition from small time to big time.

“Let’s just cut to the chase right now — you don’t think I’ve been watching?” Johnson said in a phone interview on Wednesday morning. “Of course I’m happy for them. I never had any question about it, I knew they were going to be good this year.”

It was a terrible job when he took it, and he was the one who had to eat it before the program was ready to even have a chance to win at this level. He never complained, and he never pointed a finger at anyone other than himself. He recruited decent guys, and few men took the responsibility of raising youngsters into young men more seriously than Johnson.

TCU guard Kenrich Williams secured his 18th double-double of the season (14 points, 14 rebounds) in Tuesday's 68-53 win over Central Florida in the NIT semifinals. Williams was especially dominant in TCU's second half rally and discussed his motiv

“He coached these guys hard. They had a lot of challenges,” Dixon said Wednesday from New York, the morning after his team defeated Central Florida in the NIT semifinals. “We are reaping the rewards of his hard work and discipline.”

Johnson was fired by TCU last spring with two years remaining on his contract, four years after he left LSU to take over a program that was entering its first season as a member of the Big 12.

The Horned Frogs were 50-79 in his tenure, which included one winning record and an upset at home over No. 5 Kansas in 2013.

To win in those circumstances was going to require John Wooden with John Calipari’s recruits. Not many coaches were going to win with obstacles in front of Johnson.

Despite the circumstances, he did land good players who are the bones of what has been a record year for the team. Players like Kenrich Williams, Alex Robinson, Vladimir Brodziansky, JD Miller, Michael Williams, Brandon Parrish, Kaviar Shepherd, etc. comprise the majority of the production of this particular team.